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The company was founded in 1976[3] and in its early years, concentrated on COBOL products. In 1981, it became the first company to win the Queen's Award for Industry purely for developing a software product. The product was CIS COBOL, a standard-compliant COBOL implementation for microcomputers.[4]

It was renamed Micro Focus Group in 1983.[3] In 1998 the Company acquired Intersolv Inc, an applications enablement business, for $534 million[5] and the combined business was renamed Merant.[3] In 2001 the business was demerged from Merant with help from Golden Gate Capital Partners and once again became Micro Focus.[6] It was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2005.[7]

On June 2008 the company acquired the Israeli NASDAQ listed software company NetManage for US$73.3 million.[8]

In July 2009 the Company acquired Borland, a developer of application lifecycle management tools, as well as the Quality Solutions (including automation tool Test Partner) part of Compuware.[9]

In December 2013, Micro Focus acquired the Orbix, Orbacus and Artix software product lines from Progress Software. These market-leading implementations of the CORBA standard were originally developed by IONA Technologies.[10]

In August 2010 the company discovered that the New South Wales Police Force had illegally distributed 16,000 copies of the ViewNow platform, 9,500 more than the licence allowed. Micro Focus alleged in 2011 that the NSW Police Force, Ombudsman, Police Integrity Commission, Corrective Services and other government agencies illegally used its ViewNow software, which is used to access the intelligence database known as COPS.

The company alleged police and other agencies were using 16,500 copies of its software on various computers when police were only ever entitled to 6,500 licences. The group initially alleged $10 million in damages but later increased this to $12 million after reviewing the results of a court-ordered, $120,000 KPMG audit of the NSW Police Force's computer systems.

The police force maintained during the court proceedings that it had paid for a site licence that entitled it to unlimited installations of the software for all of its officers. Despite this, it settled the matter out of court in 2012 for an undisclosed sum. The other agencies previously settled the matter out of court, also for undisclosed sums.[13]